It’s a strange concept that we should become attached in a relational way to things utterly incapable of relational reciprocation. But we do, and we call this irrational action, with a certain fondness mind you, Sentiment.
And sentiment sells more songs than iTunes!
"All I really know is that they don’t really care about us,"
"I’m so two thousand and eight, you’re so two thousand and late," are two good popular examples, so is:
"My life (my life), would suck (would suck), withoooooout you."
Sentiment takes many forms, but probably the most notable is nostalgia.
That value we place on a subjective feeling we had at some time in the past.
Note that nostalgia is not about an event in the past, nor is it about a person in our past, it is about a feeling in the past, it is only associated with an event.
We know that because when we relate to the past nostalgically, the facts of the event become less and less accurate over time, even though the feeling is recalled more and more clearly. When one looks at it that way one can see the danger!
And we know this is true because we see it in all other people, and we see it in history books… but it’s so very hard to see it in ourselves!
Actually the only way we could possibly accept our weakening nostalgia, is that we each know know that everyone else is, and we have the evidence to show it. There is a certain arrogance which says, "well everyone else does this, without exception, but I’m different, my experience was more real or more vivid than anyone’s, I wouldn’t forget the facts the way they do."
No, the truth is that all of us are nostalgic, and nostalgia is inaccurate with the facts even if it is accurate with the feelings of the past (and it gets less and less accurate with the facts over time).
Nostalgia never helps us get to the future. Indeed you cannot be nostalgic about the future and maintain your hope, because hope requires much more accuracy with the facts than nostalgia would even allow. Nostalgia can only keep your from your future.
Probably the saddest observation is that we are much more comfortable with nostalgia than we are with hope. Partly because we are lazy and partly because we are selfish, and it’s important to note that this has nothing to do with our intelligence or our education.
A lot of people, the majority I think, work themselves into a state of dealing with their future in a nostalgic way, it’s like nostalgic obesity, it’s a social disease! People do this because they have become so accustomed to being sentimental. It is not a display of stupidity, or a lack of intelligence… it’s much more serious than that! It is a display of lunacy, of an irrational madness.
And it starts when we demand relationship from un-relatable objects.
Whenever we are sentimental, whenever we are nostalgic we cannot also be Charitable and, at that moment, whatever we are doing is not Love.
If a parent has more sentiment about their child than love they will neglect their discipline, and so neglect their future. Whenever you say to a child, "wow, you’ve grown, I remember you when you were this big," you are displaying your nostalgia; what did you expect? You expected the child to look like it did when you last saw him. And so we treat children as children, not as potential adults - to their detriment.
Now God is not nostalgic; neither is He sentimental… about anything. They are not His attributes. It’s not so much that He cannot afford to be sentimental, it’s more like sentiment and nostalgia disolve in Love; sentiment cannot remain when we begin to Love.
This is one of the key things to understand about the God who presents Himself in the Bible. When an agnostic accuses God of not caring, and an atheist accuses Him of not existing, it is always because they assume that God is either sentimental or nostalgic.
So here’s my advice: give some of your stuff away and start with what is most precious to you; ride the bike you keep under wraps; use the shaped soap and the dinnarware you keep for a ’special occasion’; go on an expensive adventure; say the hard thing that needs to be said even if it offends someone; try what you think you can’t do; risk a little; obey what God says to do recklessly.
Be aware of your nostalgia and discipline yourself out of it, become less sentimental… And consume a lot more unsaturated facts!
